2/2
Cecil Beaton creation

History might have taken a different turn in February 1947 if Christian Dior had got his way, when he called his first hautecouture collection of big-skirted petal-like dresses, each using up to 30 yards of silk, The Corolle. Nononsense Carmel Snow, editor of US Harper's Bazaar, smartly renamed the romantic, nostalgic dresses with handspan waists and bust and hip padding, The New Look.

At once, those words and that silhouette swept aside the deprivation and humiliation France had suffered under the Occupation, and the dulling ef fect of rationing that Britain still endured. Women were to look delicate and feminine, and Dior's dresses that harked back to the 1850s crinolines of Charles Worth and the 1750s court dresses of Versailles were an instant sensation.

The V&A's nicely designed exhibition of 107 pieces, 90 per cent from its own collection, covers the "golden" decade, 1947-1957, when Europe rebuilt its economic prosperity. Work by Cristóbal Balenciaga, Pierre Balmain, Hubert de Givenchy, Jacques Fath; as well as London's Norman Hartnell and Hardy Amies, is on display - such a voluptuous, dramatic, sexy and embroidery-encrusted assault-by-silk that you will come out feeling both elated and dowdy.

In coupon-ridden England, the vast skirts were met at first with hostility. A Pathé news clip greets you, with a 31-year-old Harold Wilson complaining that big skirts must mean fewer skirts. "I am sure all the ladies will understand," he whinges, foolishly. But - as this beautiful show demonstrates - the ladies refused to understand. During rationing, corsets were forbidden unless under doctor's orders but women still got hold of four- inch "waspies" that yanked in their waists to set off the luscious curves these boned garments gave them.

As well of rows of dresses on mannequins, starting with a knockout red one with black gloves and ending with a rocketdisplay of evening gowns - like Margot Fonteyn's 17-inch-waist dress, that will make you gasp - there are small displays that tell the couture process, from sketch to swatch to swirling skirt, using samples and drawing books and a lot of film and photo.

Unpicking a very important industry that employed 40 per cent of the French population, curator Claire Wilcox shows the sweating seamstresses and the thumping irons, whose labour let these swan-like women loose in clothes that had as much to do with rebuilding post-war European morale and employment as any politician.

The Golden Age of Couture Paris and London 1947-1957. V&A 22 Sept-6 Jan (www.vam.ac.uk/couture).